


Visiting Hours

by hitchcock_blonde



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alice Cooper isn't quite so evil I guess, Angst and Fluff, Archie Andrews is a Terrible Friend, Betty Loves Jughead, F/M, Jughead Loves Jellybean, Protective Betty, and a side of FP hate, injured jughead, with a solid dose of Archie hate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-04-05
Packaged: 2018-10-15 00:45:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10547146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitchcock_blonde/pseuds/hitchcock_blonde
Summary: Water was coming thick and fast, splattering across the window like blood. The pounding of it on the roof was white noise. Betty Cooper, practically buried alive in her bedroom, was utterly, mind-numbingly bored. Her homework was entirely finished; her mother, taking up the entire downstairs just by making dinner, was past the point of safe exposure; Jughead wasn’t answering his phone; and she couldn’t even go outside without getting soaked to the bone.The third day of rain was in full swing when Betty got the call.“Cooper residence, this is Betty, hi--!”The voice on the other end cut her off abruptly. “It’s Archie. Jughead’s in the hospital.”





	

It had been raining for days on end when Betty got the call.

Water was coming thick and fast, splattering across the window like blood. The pounding of it on the roof was white noise. Betty Cooper, practically buried alive in her bedroom, was utterly, mind-numbingly bored. Her homework was entirely finished; her mother, taking up the entire downstairs just by making dinner, was past the point of safe exposure; Jughead wasn’t answering his phone; and she couldn’t even go outside without getting soaked to the bone.

“ELIZABETH!” Alice Cooper shouted. “COULD YOU GET THE PHONE—MY HANDS HAVE RAW CHICKEN ON THEM!”

Her hands always had something on them, it seemed. Recently, Alice Cooper had been immersing herself in the creation of increasingly elaborate meals for just the two of them. Betty had tried reassuring her that she didn’t care what they had for dinner, but she had given up when Alice pointed out meaningfully, “Now that I don’t have so many mouths to feed, I can feed them better.” It was funny--her mother wasn’t usually the one to pretend there was a silver lining in a shitty situation. That had always been Polly. (Maybe that was why.)

Betty skidded downstairs to fetch the phone, which helpfully refused to stop ringing. Breathlessly, she picked up and held it to her ear. “Cooper residence, this is Betty, hi--!”

The voice on the other end cut her off abruptly. “It’s Archie. Jughead’s in the hospital.”

Betty stilled. What? No, he wasn’t. He--he wasn’t, right? Not  _ Jughead.  _ “Wait--wh--what?”

“Jughead. He’s in the hospital.”

“N--no, he’s—”

“He snuck into his old house to visit the treehouse. It was all rotted from the rain. It wasn’t safe for him to be in there, Betty. It collapsed while he was inside. He fell all the way down.” Archie’s voice sounded frantic and hollow. Betty’s hand found the counter and gripped it tightly. “He broke his ankle and dislocated his shoulder, and I’m pretty sure they said his knee was busted too. He’s in surgery right now. You need to come over here.”

Betty’s grip on the counter slipped. She dug her fingernails into her palm as she stepped away. “I’ll be right there.”

“Hurry.”

She hung up without saying goodbye.

“Mom, I need you to take me to the hospital,” she said stiffly.

Alice looked up from contemplation of her hors d’oeuvres. “Honey, I’m making dinner,” she protested. “Why?”

Betty set the phone numbly on the counter and dug her nails in a little harder. “Just do it.”

\- 

Alice stayed in the car while Betty went ahead to the hospital. She texted Archie,  _ where are u?  _ and he replied,  _ waiting room 5th floor.  _

The elevator wasn’t moving fast enough. When an old man with a walker stopped it at the 3rd floor to get in, she nearly bit his head off. Then when it stopped again for  _ FP Jones,  _ who had apparently gotten off at the wrong floor (which got her worrying that she’d read the text wrong, and then, once she checked it, that Archie had texted her the wrong floor, and the last thing she needed was more worries right now), well, the only thing stopping her from actually biting FP’s head off was the thought of Jughead’s face when she told him she’d decapitated his father. 

The words “waiting room” and a left-pointing arrow were inscribed on a sign directly off of the elevator, thank goodness. Betty hurried down the hallway, FP somewhere behind her (although really she couldn’t care less about him), distracting herself with little things because slowing down and thinking seemed inevitable otherwise. The wall was a pointedly calming shade of tan. The carpets were grey, all grey, and better think of something else before she got to what else was grey. There was a little splotch of light on a doorknob that looked a little like a—no, not a crown, stop it, Betty—a—a crescent! Like, well…like the ones she got on her hands when the pain was too much—and she held too tightly, and—and  _ what would Jughead think of that— _

She was in.

Archie was waiting for her at the door. His face didn’t look as pale as she imagined it would. Valerie was there too, chatting animatedly with Josie while casting sidelong glances at her boyfriend.

Jellybean Jones was playing chopsticks with Kevin while her mother watched.

Veronica was painting her nails.

Reggie was there, for no particular reason, it seemed. He was twirling a football and muttering something about dumb weirdos.

“When’s he out of surgery?” Betty whispered to Archie, despising the hoarse edge of her voice. 

“I dunno,” he returned absentmindedly. “They keep saying a half-hour.”

“Why?”

Archie shrugged and pulled out his phone to play a game that looked like another Candy Crush ripoff. “I dunno,” he repeated.

“Do you think it’s going ok?”

“I dunno.”

“Oh my god, Archie.”

“I’m sorry, alright? They won’t tell me anything!”

Betty stopped herself before she could lash out. She was better than this.

“He’s going to be ok, right?” she murmured. It was well-nigh impossible to feign nonchalance, but she couldn’t let the terror gripping her chest out into the world, so she settled for a sort of tense middle ground.

“Well…” Archie’s eyes were fixed on the phone. “Uh, he’ll live.”

She wasn’t sure whether he was concentrating on the game or trying not to meet her eyes, and it worried her extremely.  _ “Archie.” _

“What?” He looked up, finally. “Betty, I told you exactly what his injuries are! He’s going to be fine! Geez! Calm down.”

Betty bit her lip. Before she could burst out with another question, though, her train of thought was abruptly interrupted.

“I didn’t abandon you, FP,” Gladys Jones argued hotly. “You abandoned  _ me.  _ I don’t know how Jughead has managed to survive this long with a father like you, I know I wouldn’t have survived if I’d stayed—you don’t even care about your family, do you? You leaned on me to fix all your problems that you  _ created  _ for  _ yourself,  _ never mind that I had problems of my own--”

“Are you  _ kidding me?  _ You walked right out that door, you took my daughter—”

“She’s my daughter more than yours! I raised JB—”

“It’s Jellybean, dammit!”

Gladys’ lip curled. “She wants to be called JB, I’ll call her JB! Doesn’t mean I approve of her trying to be like her dad—”

“Gladys, this is all your fault, you know that?” FP hissed fiercely. 

“Forsythe,” Gladys snarled, “what—”

“My boy would’ve had a home if it weren’t for you.”

A moment of silence passed, in which blood drained out of Gladys Jones’ face as she swelled to bullfrog-esque proportions. Then she punched her husband squarely in the jaw.

It was like the on switch for chaos.

Veronica and Kevin immediately rounded on Reggie, the automatic enemy, who threw his football at them in retaliation; they threw it back, so he threw it back, so they threw it back, and all the while the two sides bellowed at each other for every grievance they had ever had; Val suddenly realized that Jughead was “only seriously injured, Archie, I skipped Pussycats practice because I thought your best friend was  _ dying!”,  _ which prompted a misinterpreting Archie to shoot back, “He is my best friend!”; Gladys and FP wrestled in the center of the room in a Godzilla v. Godzilla battle to the death; Jellybean screwed her eyes shut and yelled, “MOM! MOM, STOP IT--MOM, LEAVE HIM ALONE, MOMMMMM!”; Val loudly broke up with Archie and stormed out; Gladys got FP on the ground; Veronica bashed Reggie over the head; FP got Gladys on the ground; and Betty had seen enough.

“GET OUT!” she bellowed. “LEAVE! ALL OF YOU!”

The room quieted in an instant.

“Jughead is in there,” she seethed, “having  _ surgery,  _ and all any of you care about is your own  _ petty  _ problems--I am  _ sick _ of this, you make me  _ sick.”  _

Archie began, “Betty—”

“You too, Archie.”

“What—”

“You told everyone something that was secret and important to him, just because you felt resentful—that guy kept Grundy a secret for you, Archie! I saw his face when you did it, you stabbed him in the back, it was so unbelievably selfish—!”

“Betty, his dad—”

“I KNOW! And I don’t care.” Betty took a threatening step towards Archie. “Of course he would protect his dad, of course he would, Archie! He would do the same for you or me, for his mom, for Jellybean, no matter what kind of shit any of us put him through—” She seemed to deflate slightly. “Look, I get why you were mad, I do. I was too. But the fact is, Archie, you’ve hurt him and betrayed him so many times...you don’t deserve his loyalty.”

Archie’s expression twisted into something ugly. “What?”

“None of you do.” Betty felt a sort of bitter joy rising like bile in her chest. “You know what? You don’t. FP, you practically abused him, you used him and you hurt him over and over--Gladys left him, she took Jellybean, who was the one person he couldn’t afford to lose—! Reggie, I’m not even sure why you’re here, okay? Veronica, Kevin…” She crumpled. “Please just leave.”

“Betty,” Archie said again.

“You were on your phone,” she said brokenly. “He’s  _ hurt,  _ and you were on your  _ phone.” _

“Since when do you care?”

The bile rose up her throat and threatened to choke her. She stared at Archie as the others filed out, FP glaring daggers at her as he left, Gladys dragging a protesting Jellybean in her wake.

“I always care, Archie,” she said. “About everyone.”

“Why Jughead, though?” It was cruel and twisted, which was how she knew he meant it.

Betty swallowed decisively and insisted, “Why don’t you?”

“I do,” he said eagerly, those wide eyes desperate to persuade.

“Archie…”

“He’s my friend too.” Betty sighed, defeated, and was on the verge of relenting when Archie’s phone dinged. “Oh!” He checked it. His face lit up. “Valerie just texted! Bet she wants to apologize. Let me know how it goes! See you!” 

With a grin and a wave, Archie was gone.

_ Well, _ Betty thought,  _ that was easy. _

-

Jughead leaned on his crutches and stared at Betty in confusion. “They said there were lots of people here to see me,” he remarked dryly.

“Yeah, there...there were.” Betty shifted uneasily. “I may have said some stuff. Things were--uh--getting heated.”

Jughead bit his lip. “Was Jellybean there?”

A surge of guilt washed over her at the hesitancy and regret in his eyes. “Yeah. FP and your mom were fighting. She tried to stop it.”

“Oh.” He nodded, slouching a little. “Yeah, I, I didn’t need that. Thanks.”

They shared the silence as she wrapped a steadying arm around his shoulder. He took a step.

“Reggie was there, too,” she added. When he paled, she hastened to clarify, “I got him out.”

Jughead cracked a smile. “My knight in shining armor.”


End file.
